Democrats Going To Great Lengths To Avoid Obamacare For Themselves

Democrats are really outdoing themselves in sleaziness and underhanded political tactics. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) introduced a bill that would end the Obamacare exemption for Congress critters and their staffs. Many members of both houses of Congress want nothing to do with the rotten law they want the rest of us to suffer under, and the Democrats are going after Vitter with a vengeance.

Senator Vitter says the OPM ruling has removed “the sting of Obamacare” from Congress. “Many Americans will see their health coverage dropped by employers, and they will be forced into the exchanges,” he told me last week. “If Congress is forced into them on the same terms, it will be more likely to fix Obamacare’s problems for others.” The bill he and his co-author, Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, have drafted would make everyone working on Capitol Hill buy insurance through the exchanges — with no subsidies. White House officials and political appointees in the executive branch would also be required to obtain health insurance through the exchanges.

The Congressional Leadership Empire decided to strike back at Vitter. Politicoreported that several Democratic senators have asked staff to draft legislation that would deny federal health subsidies to anyone who votes for the Vitter plan, even if Vitter’s plan doesn’t become law. An even more spiteful draft bill would bar subsidies to any lawmaker or aide found by a congressional ethics committee to have “engaged in the solicitation of prostitution.” In 2007, Vitter’s phone number was found in the records of the “D.C. Madam,” the owner of a high-end prostitution ring. Back then, Vitter held a news conference with his wife standing next to him and apologized for a “serious sin” that he refused to discuss further. He was reelected with 57 percent of the vote in 2010.

Vitter isn’t taking the attempts to strong-arm him quietly. “Harry Reid is acting like an old-time Vegas mafia thug, and a desperate one at that,” he said in a statement toPolitico. He also wrote a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee demanding an investigation of Reid and Democratic senator Barbara Boxer of California. “Threatening to take away their colleagues’ health care coverage subsidy if they do not vote a certain way, at worst constitutes bribery and a quid pro quo arrangement, and at best amounts to improper conduct,” he wrote. Senator Reid’s office responded by calling Vitter’s charges “absurd and baseless.” (Read More)

Every American, regardless of political affiliation, should be outraged by this. What makes these people think they are above the laws they pass for the rest of us, especially in this case when so much of the country was against it? They pretend to be just like the rest of us, until it comes to dealing with the laws they pass. Enough is enough. Click here to find out how to contact your Senators to let them know what you think of their underhanded shenanigans.

amazing. i hear that republican staffers also want to be exempt, but these clowns have sunk about as low as they possibly can.

meanwhile – in wapo, mr Samuelson says
“Take the popular notion that banks and investment banks (“Wall Street”) knowingly packaged bad home mortgages in securities that were then sold to unsuspecting investors. The bankers, the story goes, understood that there was a housing bubble — that prices would crash and defaults explode — but peddled bad loans because it made them rich.
Although this happened, it was the exception, not the rule. That’s the conclusion of a study by economists at the University of Michigan and Princeton. They reasoned that if the investment bankers packaging mortgages expected a housing collapse, they would have been careful in their own home purchases. So
the economists compared the bankers’ home-buying with that of lawyers and stock analysts who lacked specialized housing knowledge. The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the bankers showed little “awareness of a housing bubble and impending crash.” During the boom, they bought larger homes and second homes. Compared to the lawyers and stock analysts, their housing purchases fared “significantly worse.”
What explains their lapse? Probably this: Before the real estate collapse, there was a widespread belief that housing prices would rise indefinitely, preventing
(by definition) a bubble. We now know this belief was mistaken, stupid and suicidal. But for many, it was genuine. An earlier study by economists at the
Boston Federal Reserve reached a similar conclusion.
”

hey – i like the way he uses the word ‘probably’, and ‘it was the exception, not the rule’. What a crock. What matters is what caused the mortgage backed securities that banks hold – to collapse, and bring down the market and the economy along with it. People discovered that MBS were garbage, in spite of rating agencies stamping them with AAA. Does that take a majority ? These people continually cite “studies” – and as far as I can tell, these ‘studies’ are irrelevant. If most people believe that real estate can only go up – what the heck has that got to do with the FBI reporting massive fraud ? Isn’t the executive branch supposed to pay attention to the FBI – rather than conversations around the water cooler ?
there is a load of spinning going on here.